Susanne Koestner called a Walgreens in Albuquerque to refill her birth control prescription in mid-June. The pharmacist working told her he wouldn’t do it and she should get her birth control the next day from someone else, according to an American Civil Liberties Union news release. He said it was against his religious beliefs.

So Koestner had to call a different Walgreens because she couldn’t wait. (Birth control is time-sensitive.)

“Something is very wrong when a man can walk in to any pharmacy and buy condoms, but a woman can't fill a birth control prescription prescribed to her by a doctor,” says Koestner in the release. “As a patient, I am at the mercy of licensed pharmacists and pharmacies when it comes to being able to receive the medications my doctor has prescribed for me.”

Some states have made laws protecting a pharmacist’s right to refuse: Pharmacists can refuse to dispense specifically emergency contraception in Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Mississippi and South Dakota. So-called “conscience clauses” got their start in the ’70s after Roe v. Wade.

In Illinois, a law was passed demanding pharmacists dispense contraception.

The local chapter of the ACLU says the Albuquerque pharmacist’s refusal constitutes sex discrimination. “... Walgreens is free to accommodate the religious beliefs of its pharmacists,” says ACLU-NM Staff Attorney Alexandra Freedman Smith in the release. “However, religion cannot be used to discriminate against people, and that is exactly what happened here.”

The ACLU and the Southwest Women’s Law Center sent Walgreens a letter requesting that if a pharmacist on staff can’t fill prescriptions due to religious beliefs, another pharmacist should be on duty who can.

Free birth control and other big bonuses

By Whitny Doyle

Free birth control was rolled into the country’s coming health care reform at the beginning of August. Yet the suggestion that women ought to have access to preventive measures predictably outraged people who confuse contraception with abortion.

Telling people condoms don't work is irresponsible, says Alibi columnist Whitny Doyle, R.N. But APS board member David Robbins spread that misinformation like an STI a few weeks ago. Read Miss Diagnosis' op-ed, which is rooted in her nursly experience.

The drug works for five days after unprotected sex. Plan B, the emergency contraceptive on the market today, only works for three days. Europeans have had Ella for a while. In the U.S., it will be prescription only.